horse drivers and the closest thing i’ve ever owned to one (a flashback)

there are two types of people in this world i hate: those who judge and ridicule people simply because of what they believe in or the lifestyle they choose, and the amish. what the FUCK is up with those lincoln-beard wearing, black-hat-sporting, buggy-driving shitheads? i took courses in college on various religions and this is the one nobody seems to really go too deeply into, except to say they lead “the extremely simple life” because that is “what they believe in, for religious reasons”. let’s break down religion to it’s most basic of concepts, shall we? from where i sit, most of them, particularly christian-based faiths, can break down into three simple concepts:

1. if all is well, attribute it to (fill in name of “good” deity here)
2. if all is NOT well, attribute it to YOU not following the rules, or (fill in name of “bad” deity here)
3. do “this”, get “this”.

it’s the third one where amish people puzzle me…in most judeo-christian theologies (which are basically just philosophies with tax-exemption, but since philosophies are “theories”, and to call a religion a “theory” opens it up to being nothing more than an abstract concept, which means it might not ACTUALLY exist, and try explaining THAT to a southern baptist: therefore, we have the word “theology” to differentiate the two, but i digress…) the rule #3 is, do this, get eternal salvation. heaven. nothing but good shit, basically. and hell would be all the shit you DON’T want, all at once.

by that concept, hell for amish people would be all lust and sex and strippers with narrow, bubbly, “non-birthing” hips and perky fake boobs, and corvettes, and ferraris, and 65″ plasma screen TVs with 257 channels and dvd changers and huge walk-in humidors and wine cellars and liquor cabinets and all the other “non-simple” things, right?

give daddy some of THAT.

no matter who your deity of choice is, pray for amish hell for all!!!

when i got home last night, i had nada. nothing. not a damn thing to write about. so, i left it up to the fates to decide who would be my muse. since there’s no woman at the house (which can be a good thing on the rare occasion i tote one home with me, right? guess that all depends on the woman…some would enjoy that sort of “take out”) i left it up to the puppies. when i open my utility room door, their pavlovian response it to run like hell. take off like a shot. and then one of them ALWAYS runs back in like, “shit…DAD’S here…i haven’t seen him all day!!!”.

this time it was my boy…calum. (pronounced kay-lum, in case you’re curious…it’s gaelic for “bringer of peace” he’s half rott, half st. bernard. 122 lbs of black and tan slobbery, bouncy, loveable puppy…unless you try and come in my place when i’m not here or act hostile towards me in front of him…then he’s your worst nightmare and THEN some). i told him that by the end of the night he had to come up with something for dad to throw on the ‘whore, adding that copper HAD been stealing a lot of the doggie spot light lately, just to fuel him.

what did i get? at the end of the night, “puppy last call”, as it were, when i bring all three of them in and we crash, calum was alone in the utility room chewing on a squeak toy. when i asked him why he wasn’t outside, he looked up at me and his face was bleeding. not a lot, mind you, but it was his FACE. about a quarter of an inch from his eye. i have NO idea what happened, but once i cleaned him up and put some bacitracin on him, he was on the mend, and the spot didn’t look so bad.

the reason this caught me off guard is because calum is the oldest of “the tribe” and also seems the most indestructible. not just because of his size, but his history. this is the boy who as a puppy ate a third of a box of tide with bleach powder with NO side effects. he drank windshield washer fluid. he head-butts out boards in the fence when he decides he wants out rather than digging under them. this is one tough son-of-a-bitch (and for him, i can use that term literally). the other two have bled in front of me (even copper, who’s only been here a month, cut her paw three days after arrival somehow) but calum? never. although he DID enjoy the attention i think. and seems to be mending nicely. that’s my boy.

what do calum and the amish have in common OTHER than always being in black, not driving, and not owning electronics (which is quite a lot, when you think about it) not a lot. but more than one person has told me that these articles i make me seem like i have a mild case of ADD, so i’m gonna run with it…

…and yes. i DO realize that the intro line is a BLATANT rip-off of michael caine’s line about the dutch in austin powers iii.

Replies: 2 Comments

well, that would explain that whole sheep thing you told me about…but what if he’s gay AND amish? then he’d qualify for government funding…

sean (dr. sean, to most of you) said @ 08/22/2002 04:24 AM GMT

So, Sean, I was thinking…maybe we were wrong about my boyfriend all along. Maybe Chet’s not gay…he’s just Amish.